Emerging conversations about technology and coaching

Technology already has enabled coaching to scale globally and reach thousands of coaching clients. For several years, coaches and their clients have been working together by phone and videoconference. Yet there is an even larger opportunity to scale coaching. Today's technology and future innovations offer much more than convenient alternatives to in-person coaching sessions. With the onset of COVID lockdowns and mass working-from-home, coaching previously done via in-person sessions also moved rapidly to remote sessions via telephone and videoconference. Coaches and their clients have adopted new practices such as: walking sessions (coach and client are both walking in their chosen locations while talking);sessions in outdoor spaces;and sessions using virtual reality tools. They have also added a decision on which communication approach to use as a pre-session step. As organisations slowly open up their workplaces on a limited basis, permission for in-person coaching sessions is generally low priority relative to, e.g., key project team meetings. Both organisations and employees have expressed "there's no going back" to daily office life and commutes. The data on pandemic-related changes in demand for the types of digital tools discussed in this chapter is still emerging. It is also unclear whether or how the demand for digital tools will change once in-person coaching options are partially or fully restored. Like other helping professions, coaching has gone through an intense period of digital delivery. The context of this period is one of mass use of digital tools for remote working, schooling at all levels and personal, social relationships. While fighting exposure to a virus, we have been heavily exposed to digital communication in all aspects of our lives. As results from mass distribution of COVID vaccines during 2021 become clear coaching clients, their employers and coaches will have new data to use to reset how coaching sessions take place. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)